Locke’s heart beat against the inside of his chest like a trapped bird. He wanted to scream.
“Of course,” he said. “Of course! Jean and I will do anything you ask. I’m grateful for the opportunity.”
“Good. Because the only negotiation we’ll be doing is with bolt, blade, and fist. I’ve got a surprise for that gray piece of shit, if he thinks to dictate terms to me over the body of my only daughter!”
Locke ground his teeth together. I know what can bring him out from that soggy fortress of his, the Gray King had said.
“Capa Barsavi,” said Locke, “have you considered…well, the things they say about the Gray King? He can kill men with a touch, he can walk through walls; he can’t be harmed by blades or by arrows…”
“Stories told in wine. He does as I did, when I first took this city; he hides himself well and he chooses his targets wisely.” The capa sighed. “I admit that he is good at it, perhaps as good as I was. But he’s not a ghost.”
“There is another possibility,” said Locke, licking his lips. How much of what was said here might reach the Gray King’s ears? He’d unraveled the secrets of the Gentlemen Bastards thoroughly enough. To hell with him. “The possibility of a…Bondsmage.”
“Aiding the Gray King?”
“Yes.”
“He’s been vexing my city for months, Locke. It might explain some things, yes, but the price…Even I could not pay a Bondsmage for that length of time.”
“Scorpion hawks,” said Locke, “aren’t just created by the Bondsmagi. As far as I know, only Bondsmagi themselves keep them. Could an ordinary…falconer train a bird that could kill him with one accidental sting?” Bullshit well, he thought. Bullshit very well. “The Gray King wouldn’t need to have kept one this whole time. What if the Bondsmage is newly arrived? What if the Bondsmage has only been hired for the next few days, the critical point of whatever the Gray King’s scheme is? The rumors about the Gray King’s powers…could have been spread to prepare for all of this.”
“Fantastical,” said Barsavi, “and yet it would explain much.”
“It would explain why the Gray King is willing to meet you alone and unarmed. With a Bondsmage to shield him, he could appear both yet be neither.”
“Then my response is unchanged.” Barsavi squeezed one fist inside the other. “If one Bondsmage can best a hundred knives-including you and I, my sons, my Berangias sisters, your friend Jean and his hatchets-then the Gray King has chosen his weapons better than I. But for my part, I do not imagine that he has.”
“You will keep the possibility in mind?” Locke persisted.
“Yes. I shall.” Barsavi placed a hand on Locke’s shoulder. “You must forgive me, my boy. For what has happened.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Your Honor.” When the capa changes the subject, thought Locke, the subject is finished. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“It is my war. It’s me the Gray King truly wishes to cut.”
“You offered me a great deal, sir.” Locke licked his lips, which had suddenly gone dry. “I’d very much like to help you kill the bastard.”
“So we shall. At the ninth hour of the evening, on Duke’s Day, we begin to gather. Anjais will come to fetch you and Tannen at the Last Mistake.”
“What of the Sanzas? They’re good with knives.”
“And with cards, or so I hear. I like them well enough, Locke, but they’re fiddlers. Amusers. I’m taking serious folk for serious business.”
“As you say.”
“Now.” Barsavi took a silk handkerchief from his vest pocket and slowly mopped his brow and cheeks with it. “Leave me, please. Come back tomorrow night, as a priest. I’ll have all my other priests of the Benefactor. We’ll give her…a proper ritual.”
Despite himself, Locke was flattered. The capa had known that all of Father Chains’ boys were initiates of the Benefactor, and Locke a full priest, but he’d never before asked for Locke’s blessing in any official sense.
“Of course,” he said quietly.
He withdrew then, leaving the capa standing in the bloody morning light, leaving him all alone at the heart of his fortress, for the second time, with nothing but a corpse for company.
2
“GENTLEMEN,” SAID Locke, huffing and puffing as he closed the door to the seventh-floor rooms behind him. “We have done our bit for appearances this week; let’s all work out of the temple until further notice.”
Jean was sitting in a chair facing the door, hatchets resting on his thigh, with his battered old volume of The Korish Romances in his hands. Bug was snoring on a sleeping pallet, sprawled in one of those utterly careless positions that give instant arthritis to all save the very young and foolish. The Sanzas were sitting against the far wall, playing a desultory hand of cards; they looked up as Locke entered.
“We are released from one complication,” said Locke, “and flung headlong into another. And this bitch has teeth.”
“What news?” said Jean.
“The worst sort.” Locke dropped into a chair, threw back his head, and closed his eyes. “Nazca’s dead.”
“What?” Calo leapt to his feet; Galdo wasn’t far behind. “How did that happen?”
“The Gray King happened. It must have been the ‘other business’ he referred to when I was his guest. He sent the body back to her father in a vat of horse piss.”
“Gods,” said Jean. “I’m so sorry, Locke.”
“And now,” continued Locke, “you and I are expected to accompany the Capa when he avenges her, at the ‘clandestine meeting’ three nights hence. Which will be at the Echo Hole, by the way. And the capa’s idea of ‘clandestine’ is a hundred knives charging in to cut the Gray King to bloody pieces.”
“Cut you to bloody pieces, you mean,” said Galdo.
“I’m well aware of who’s supposed to be strutting around wearing the Gray King’s clothes, thanks very much. I’m just debating whether or not I should hang an archery butt around my neck. Oh, and wondering if I can learn to split myself in two before Duke’s Day.”
“This entire situation is insane.” Jean slammed his book shut in disgust.
“It was insane before; now it’s become malicious.”
“Why would the Gray King kill Nazca?”
“To get the capa’s attention.” Locke sighed. “Either to frighten him, which it certainly hasn’t accomplished, or to piss him off beyond all mortal measure, which it has.”
“There will never be peace, now. The capa will kill the Gray King or get himself killed trying.” Calo paced furiously. “Surely the Gray King must realize this. He hasn’t facilitated negotiations; he’s made them impossible. Forever.”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” said Locke, “that the Gray King may not be telling us everything concerning this scheme of his.”
“Out the Viscount’s Gate, then,” said Galdo. “We can spend the afternoon securing transportation and goods. We can pack up our fortune; vanish onto the road. Fuck, if we can’t find somewhere to build another life with forty-odd thousand crowns at our fingertips, we don’t deserve to live. We could buy titles in Lashain; make Bug a count and set ourselves up as his household.”
“Or make ourselves counts,” said Calo, “and set Bug up as our household. Run him back and forth. It’d be good for his moral education.”